jonathan_spira

<p>I'm somewhat in awe of the treatise that JDM prepared on the subject of Colorflow (and Colorflow II) filters. <br>

<br />More importantly, I'd like to thank the forum members for their very kind comments about my father. Not to single anyone out but Steve Levine's Henry Ford comment was particularly meaningful because it was not the first time someone made that connection (John Durniak wrote this in Pop Photo in 1979). <br>

<br />Here are two fun trivia facts that relate to the thread:<br>

<br />1.) In addition to the Colorflow filters, there was also Colorflow background paper. (I still use the few sheets of Colorflow background paper that I have - and I would give anything to get my hands on more)<br>

2.) While the company merged with Interphoto (a public company) and ended up out of my father's control at the point at which he left, he still owned the fairly large headquarters building in Flushing and eventually had to evict Spiratone (in Spira v. Spiratone) after the company could no longer pay its bills including rent.</p>

<p>A bit of background on the Spiraflex body. <br>

The Spiraflex was the second body we sold. The first, also by Petri, was the first SLR my father gave me to use as a kid (it was manufactured in the early 1960s, as was I for that matter).<br>

Since Spiratone's philosophy was that the company only sold accessories and no cameras, the Spiraflex was marketed as an extra body or a companion body, so to speak.<br>

I eventually graduated to the newer Spiraflex and still have it today (along with hundreds of other Spiratone and Acura items).</p>

<p>I am fairly certain the 20 mm 2.8 was made by Sun but I would need to know the vintage to be sure. If it is more recent it might have been Tokina.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>So much to clarify...<br>

Spiratone and Sigma had a very close relationship, so close that the son of the founder (Mr Yamaki) spent a year at Spiratone in a kind of internship (at least, that's what we would call it now). <br>

Re YS, the Y stands for Yamaki (head of Sigma) - the S stands for Spira. Anyone care to guess who came up with the idea for YS jointly? So Sigma's reply is simply wrong.<br>

Re Accura, incorrect. Accura did not become Sigma. SFS started Accura as an additional label that we were able to sell through distributors (SFS had a separate importing company, PID, but no distribution arm in the U.S. aside from Spiratone, which was direct). A lot of the items were almost identical to Spiratone items but labeled Accura and sold at different price points. Somehow SFS managed to keep Accura and Spiratone from competing with one another. <br>

Did I miss anything?</p>

<p>I'd like to thank everyone for the great comments and address JDM's comment about the influence of SFS on the T-mount system. As you know, Tamron and other brands were unknown in the U.S. at the time and Spiratone was the biggest importer of Sun and Tamron lenses.<br>

Spiratone had its own optical engineers and consultants who worked on lens design alongside the manufacturers so there were separate Spiratone models that the manufacturers made which sometimes had more costly design elements than what they otherwise manufactured. We also had QC inspectors at the factories who worked directly for Spiratone (until it became cost prohibitive, we had a small office in Tokyo run by an American expat).<br>

Although I do not know the exact details (but I do know whom to ask if necessary), SFS did play a significant role in getting Japanese lens makers to agree on interchangeable lens mount standards, first with the T-mount and later with the YS adapters.</p>

There is a very nice article by Burt Keppler about my father that just came out - it?s at http://www.photoreporter.com/article.asp?issueID=89&num=16&vol=15&articleType=fc&articleID=1722

Thought everyone would like to see it.